Thursday, January 31, 2013

Recent UFO Sightings in the Workshop

I've been busy as hell getting things ready for the upcoming Hobby Expo on February 9th at the Petaluma Community Center. With all of the goings-on, I haven't been writing as much as I'd like, but I still want to share some of what I've been up to.First, I'm almost finished making a handful of STA-52 Light Assault Rifles from the Killzone series. Here's the stack of raw castings:That odd gap in the buttstock? That's where the two-tier drum magazine goes:While I'd originally intended to just make the rifle as a display piece, I'm starting to really like the look of the Helghan troops. With that in mind, I'm at least making the helmet if not the whole outfit:Speaking of helmets, I've started working on another Space Marine suit with more trim and badges than any of the other ones I've already built. Here's the first part:Here's the left shoulder nearly finished:The right shoulder still has a long way to go:

While this suit will probably be armed with a bolt pistol and/or bolter, I've also decided it'd be really cool if I can make him a power sword and a combat knife. Here's the forming bucks in progress:Also on the 40k front, since I was never happy with my Imperial Guard costumes, I've put some time into making them a little more involved. Here's some of the new parts added to the web gear:Here's a few badges I've sculpted, molded, casted, and painted:Since I never seem to be able to stop making HALO stuff, I'm still working on my Agent Maine costume. Here's the right shoulder out of the mold before prep work was finished:Here's the left shoulder and a couple of raw copies just in case:

On the backburner, I'm still making slow progress on my "all digital" Ironman costume build. I'm making all of the pieces on my Objet 3D printer and my Carvewright CNC machine. Here's the CNC'ed bicep almost smoothed out enough to mold:It looks pretty good considering the way the pieces look when the come out of the machine. For example, here's one-third of the chest:Finally, I've made a lot of progress on my latest Combat Garden Gnome. Behold... the Bayonet Gnome:He's still got a way's to go, but I'm happy with the sculpt so far.

So that's the bulk of what I've got in progress right now (that I'm allowed to talk about). Huge progress will unfold in the next couple of weeks, so be sure to subscribe so you don't miss any updates.

I'd like to do the Terminator suit, but there's no way I can make it practical. The standard marines already don't fit through doors and the best of my crew can only go for a few hours in costume before fatigue sets in.

In this case, I'm building a veteran sergeant with Terminator honors, hence the Crux Terminatus on the left shoulder. I've read up a bit and looked all over for any idea of whether or not this is canon in accordance with the Dark Angels Codex and associated literature. In the end I decided, "Screw it, it'll look cool," and I started the sculpt.